By Shamindra Ferdinando

The government will not accept any third party mediation to bring the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) back to the negotiating table, The Island reliably learns.

There is no need for an external role in essentially a domestic political process, External Affairs Ministry sources said, responding to a recent offer made by South Africa to assist Sri Lanka in the post-war reconciliation process.

A senior foreign ministry official said that assistance had been offered by a South African government delegation which met External Affairs Minister G. L. Peiris in Colombo last Friday.

South Africa’s Deputy Minister of International Relations and Co-operation Ebrahim Ebrahim and former Minister of Constitutional Affairs Roelf Meyer met Prof. Peiris to discuss ongoing efforts to achieve peace.

The South African offer is believed to have the blessings of the LTTE groups based in Europe and America.

The SLFP and the TNA launched a special negotiating process on Jan 10, 2011 to iron out differences. After several rounds of talks, the TNA quit the negotiating process on Aug 4, 2011.

The foreign ministry official pointed out that South Africa had never accepted foreign mediation or facilitation on the basis that it was the principal political forces, in the country itself, that had the deepest interest in arriving at a durable solution, which had necessarily to be constructed in keeping with local sentiments and aspirations.